A food trip to Singapore would be incomplete without paying a visit to at least one Hawker Center. They are typically open-air complexes populated with all sort of food vendors (the “hawkers”). Each stall usually specializes in one single food item or just a few related. They are all over Singapore and very much part of the culture.
The visit
I went to Maxwell Food Center in Chinatown area with two friends from Japan and Taiwan. It was a Friday evening in July 2019. This particular center seemed to cater both to tourist and locals. There was a good mix and it was busy but not packed. This is a relatively large center with over 100 stalls organized in 3 or 4 alleys.
We arrived at 7pm. Despite being open till late, many stalls were winding down at that time, in particular there seemed to be no chicken rice available (like at the celebrated Tian Tian Chicken Rice stall at n. 10 and 11). If you are craving for chicken rice, go earlier.
We collected goodies from different stalls (plus some drinks from a separate one; drinks are usually sold by specialized stalls) and then we found a table for the feast. Tables are not linked to any specific stall, you can sit wherever you find a spot.
First stop was a stall selling oyster fritters called Maxwell Fuzhou Oyster Cake (Stall no. 5). The cakes were deep fried with oyster meat and other ingredients such as minced prawns, pork, peanuts and oyster juice. Each cake is the size of a hand’s palm. We bough half dozen and we were derided by the seller claiming that his customers would eat at least a dozen each. Perhaps just a clumsy attempt to up-sell, or in Singapore there are some massive oyster cake eaters.
Then we went to stall 71 (Fu Shun Shao La Mian Jia) and we had to queue for 10 minutes or so for some Cantonese style roasted goose and pork.
Finally during the waiting I ordered some fish balls from stall 72 (Seafood White Bee Hoon Kitchen).
All the food was very good. The oyster cakes were less juicy than expected, but still very nice. The roast meat was comparable to the best Cantonese roast in Hong Kong. The fish balls had a good amount of batter and were also nice.
The check
Most of the food was bought by a friend so I did not track all the costs. Obviously the big ticket item was the roast meat. The cakes and the fish balls were just a few Singaporean dollars. It was really affordable.
Sinapore continues to sport quality hawker food and a visit to a hawker center is highly recommended.
Where in Singapore:
1 Kadayanallur Street
This review was very useful while looking for stalls. Also here you can find the description of several other stalls.